Mapping the Genre's Best Secret Passages and Boss Runs
A Mansoura-based crew charting metroidvania world design, from hidden shortcuts to the gauntlets that test everything you've learned
Explore MapsWhich map deserves a second look?
Send us the interconnected world you think nails exploration, and we'll dig into its layout next
What Our Map Breakdowns Cover
Level design analysis built by people who actually chart every room
We trace backtracking loops, shortcut placement, and ability-gated doors to show how each world teaches itself to the player.
We flag the well-hidden rooms and false walls that reward curiosity, noting which ones feel earned versus arbitrary.
Multi-boss rush sequences get ranked on pacing, checkpoint fairness, and how well they close out a game's power curve.
Our small team in Mansoura, Egypt plays through each title together, comparing notes before publishing any map breakdown.
How do you decide which metroidvania to cover next?
We rotate between recent releases, cult favorites readers request, and older titles whose map design still gets referenced in genre discussions. Reader suggestions in the comments often push a title up the queue.
Do you rate games with a score?
No numeric scores. We break down map design, secret density, and boss gauntlet structure in prose, so readers can judge which elements matter most to their own taste.
What counts as a 'boss gauntlet' in your reviews?
Any sequence forcing back-to-back boss rematches or a rush of new bosses without a save point in between. We look at checkpoint placement, difficulty spikes, and whether the sequence respects the player's time.
Are these reviews based on full playthroughs?
Yes. Every map breakdown comes after a complete playthrough with full or near-full map completion, including optional areas, before we write anything up.
Can I submit a map I think deserves coverage?
Absolutely, we take reader submissions through the comments and social channels. If enough people back a suggestion, it usually lands in our next round of coverage.
Currently on the Map Table
Titles our Mansoura crew has recently traced room by room
Blasphemous
A punishing world stitched together with brutal shortcuts and a gauntlet-heavy final stretch that rewards players who mapped every chapel corridor.
Environmental Station Alpha
An underrated ZX Spectrum-style map dense with secret passages behind destructible terrain, often overlooked next to bigger genre names.
Axiom Verge
Glitch-based traversal turns its map into a puzzle of its own, with hidden rooms that only reveal themselves once you break the game's rules.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Interconnected biomes built around momentum-based movement, with boss encounters that double as spatial tests of everything unlocked so far.
Hollow Knight: Silksong-adjacent Fan Cartography
Community-made map projects tracing Hallownest's secret passages continue to shape how we discuss ability-gated backtracking in our essays.
Chasm
Procedurally shaped corridors mean no two playthroughs share a map, making its secret passage design a recurring topic in our comment threads.
What Readers Are Saying
Their breakdown of the gauntlet in Blasphemous actually explained why the checkpoint placement felt so brutal instead of just calling it hard. Changed how I read boss rush design now.
I found this site looking for Axiom Verge secret room theories and ended up reading through their whole archive in one sitting. The map diagrams they reference are genuinely useful.
Not many sites talk about Environmental Station Alpha in this much detail. Their piece on its hidden terrain finally got me to go back and 100% it.